James Duvall- Part 3- The Tragic Years

The Mystery of Stephani Dyer

James Duvall- A New History Part 1

The city of Duvall, Washington was named after James Duvall, who was the one of the original purchasers of the land after the USA claimed rights to it, and he lived here and logged it. There were others, including his brother, who came here at the same time, or soon after, but the town was named after him as his claim was central xxx

was born on January 9th, 1834  on his father's homestead in Morgan County, Illinois , and died from liver and stomach cancer  76 years later on May 16, 1910 in Seattle, Washington. He is remembered  today, together with his older brother Frances, as the namesake of the town (now city) of Duvall, Washington.

His life history is barely recorded. The entirety of what is remembered of him now is  written in a few paragraphs by three now dead Duvall residents, Ralph Taylor (1905-198x0 in his book of memoirs, Don Funk (192x-197x0) in two articles published in the 1950s in a local paper, The Carnavall Reporter, and   Marthe Barnett ( 183x-198x), a local school librarian who wrote a self published book on the history of Duvall (See Duvall Historians). Later others wrote about him as well, but only retelling what had been previously written.

None of these writers, or any others, actually knew him, or knew his children (though Ralph Taylor wrote to his youngest daughter, Olive, and received a short response from her about her father). Both brothers and their families are for the most part are lost to history, and it is difficult to get any sense of them, or their wives and children. Only two anecdotes about James exist, but give little information on his character, and it is not complimentary.

In addition- and perhaps a large reason that both brothers are now only slightly know- is that the evidence suggests that they were both illiterate. They neither wrote letters, or likely received them. But more importantly- and unlike other early Snoqualmie settlers- they died without contemporaries writing of them.

James was born to a large family and all of his siblings were born  in either Illinois or Missouri. Some of them immigrated in 1852 on the Oregon trail to the Willamette valley with their father, Nicholas Duvall. Nicholas himself was from Kentucky, purchased land in Illinois, and was a veteran of the Black Hawk war in Illinois ( the war that Abraham Lincoln was also a veteran of). 

He fathered 15 children with three wives. His last wife, Mary died in Macon, Missouri in 1860, but never went to Oregon.

James and Nicholas were teens when they came to Oregon. With them was their sister Sarah, her twin Susan, a younger brother Elijah, and an older brother Davis, and younger sister Mary. One brother, xx, died on the Oregon Trail.

Nicholas had received two land grants in other states for his service in the war. He had served in a a regiment of volunteer horse soldiers, under a Captain xxx. They are remembered for a disgraceful defeat in their only battle, and fled in disorder. However, they received land grants, and Nicholas received two, signed his off to other men, and likely he used this money to buy the necessary equipment to migrate, and to homestead. Which he did in two locations, along the Willamette northwest of Portland on Sauvies Island, but also in what is now the city of Portland. James and Frances were part of this, and when they came of age, traveled north to Puget Sounds to try their hand at the same. They show up in Snohomish in the 1870 census. Likely they came to Ultsalady, on Whidbey, and made their  way.

Frances purchased first- in 1875, and came here to live with his family. James likely came at the same time, but did not purchase his land until two years later, in 1877 (not ten years later as our histories report). He also came here to live, but it is not known if they lived here at the same time- and there is a reason to think they did not.

Neither were "homesteaders" as is generally thought. The Duvall brothers each purchased their parcels per the 1820 laws for purchasing public lands, directly through the territorial offices in Olympia- unlike homesteaders, who earned their patents to their property by developing it over 4 years, as required by the 1862 Homestead act. Very few of the first property owners in the immediate area homesteaded, though James was to claim another parcel through the act later in his life.

After the Point Elliot treaty in 1855, the valley and surrounding area was taken from the Snoqualmie tribe, as it was from all the tribes in the region, and it had to be divided up into saleable parcels. The US government had long practice in how to do this, and as with most of the West, divided it based on "cadastral" survey practices- where an arbitrary grid 6 miles long by 6 miles wide was placed over the land, and teams of surveyors, starting in Portland, Oregon, applied the primary grid to the land and marked it with marks on trees, and with stones. Plus, they mapped it and noted where the forests were, and what the potential development of the lands could be. This occurred soon after 1865 and extended both North to the Canadian border, and south to California. It took many years to complete.

Ten years later, in 1875, another round of surveyors came through the valley, and divided it up further into the mile by mile "sections", that exist and are the basis of all property lines today. The surveyor traveled through with compass and chain, and (I assume) made tree marks and planted stone corner markers for the purchasers and homesteaders to come.

 
There were, of course, already people here, both white and Native American. Although the government had hoped that all the Native Americans would move voluntarily to their assigned reservations, the Snoqualmies for the most part did not. They were promised a separate reservation and financial payments which never occurred, so stayed. So they were here when this was happening. Also here were the various "pre-emption" settlers- those who had built homes in the woods and cleared some land. The survey maps show these cabins and barns sprinkled throughout the area.

 
The Duvalls purchased their land at $1.20 an acre under the 1820 regulations, as almost all immigrants did. Each bought around 160 acres it , so paid out $250 (vfy). How they selected the land is not clear- but a guess is that they first visited the land office in Olympia to look at the survey maps and read the reports, picked some options, and then made the trip up the river from Everett by canoe to make their choices. They marked their claims, then made the long trip back to Olympia to make their payments and fill out the paperwork. Then back to their claims.

It would be harder to imagine that they made these purchases sight unseen, but that is also a possibility. Someone recommending these parcels seems unlikely-as they were the first here, though Samuel Elwell was also here at the same time.

Why did they choose these particular parcels when they had pretty much first pick of any land in the area? What made these parcels special?

 
Firstly, they were looking to make money, not a farm, and these parcels were thick with timber. But unlike almost all other sites along the river, these were sloped at a gentle downward angle to the river that would make extracting the timber and sliding along greased logs it into the river something that could be done much easier than it could be done on very steep slopes or flat ones.

There is no record of when they came, or how much they actually logged (later loggers would also take timber from these properties). There is only the patent dates- which must be close to then they arrived- and dates when they sold the properties, or lost them. Frances received his patent first- in 1875- and was married with children when he did so, so one would assume his family lived her was well. James may have lived here as well, helping to log the property, and there is evidence of that as well.

But eventually, Frances decided this wasn't a life for him and his family, and he defaulted on his loan. And then it gets tricky. The Eye reports he sued his brother in court.

What could this have been for.

homesteaders in the city of Duvall, Washington, and the town was named in 1913 in his honor (or by legal agreement- there are two stories, plus at least one author claims it was named after his brother, Frances).

However, even though he was the namesake, surprisingly very little is known about him, and the earlier histories of the town, only repeat a few basic facts. In general, they all say he came here after his brother Frances in the 1870s, took over Frances's homestead, married a Tulalip woman, logged the land with 6 black oxen, lived in a cabin the top of what is now Stephens street, then sold the property to the founders o the town, and disappeared. Possibly came back once, and also went to the Klondike at some point.

That's it - except there's one distasteful anecdote about how he forced a crew of Native American workers who struck for more wages half way through a log run on the river, by threatening to beat them with a big stick. Not something one would want to be remembered by- but still told as it somehow demonstrates his "pioneer"spirit.

Because he was no longer here when the town was incorporated, I don't think much else was known of him by even the people who lived here in the 1900s, and so only a few facts got handed down, and these were repeated as gospel as each local historian wrote their history. It's not much.
However, here is more information now available than the earlier historians (Ralph Taylor, Marthe Barnett, Don Funk, Bob Kosters, and Allen Miller (plus others of course)) could easily access. So I've been going through this, and what I have discovered I think paints quite a different picture of him, at least in some ways, than we previously knew, and a much fuller one regarding his life experience and what happened to him. Its not a happy story, unfortunately.


Its mostly facts however- and mostly lots of small ones, small tidbits that are more like clues to what happened in his life rather than the full story, and they don't shed much light at all on what sort of man he was. After compiling what I have so far, I don't have a strong feeling as to his personality or disposition, except to guess a few core things, that I think were common to many men of his background and enterprise.


And of course, we have this classic image of him (and only one other), which I have had animated, which I think give us some idea. However, even this is deceptive, as it was an image sent to Ralph Taylor by James's daughter late in her life, and was of James when he was very ill and near death. So we're seeing him long after his prime, and considering the incredible amount of work he did, and life he led, it's hard to see all of that in this image.



My research uses three primary sources, all of which may have been accessible in the past, but were difficult and time consuming to do. Firstly, I use Ancestry.com to research his origins. This website, and others like it, utilize the various 10 year censuses to track people as they moved around, and James Duvall, plus his (very large!) family, is no exception. By pretending I am him, I have been able to build what I think is a fairly accurate family tree.


Secondly, the old newspapers xxxx
Thirdly, the BLM property records.
Fourthly, the early surveys and various maps xxxxx

The Historians

Duvall- like the other towns in the Snoqualmie valley-  has had its early history written numerous times by several local residents. But there are five that stand out, and can be considered responsible for what we now call our history. These five either had lived the times they wrote of, or had family that did and so knew the history , or spoke with those that did and had direct knowledge. 

In order of appearance, these writers were Don Funk, Ralph Taylor,  Marthe Barnett, Allen Miller, and Bob Kosters.

All histories written since theirs have just been distillations of what they originally wrote. 

Their sources were their families and xxx mostly the stories that were told , but a few also did research in the resources then available, such as the archives at Sand Point, or older newspapers archived in various libraries, or in State records in Olympia.

The earliest local writer was Don Funk (xx), who wrote a column called Just Coginatin in a local paper The Carnivall in the 1950s. He wrote around 40 columns, which have been collected in volume 3 of the local history society's Wagon Wheel, and make very good reading. He knew a lot- and remembered a lot.

The next writer lived some the same early years as Don Funk, and arrived in 1910, and was devoted to saving what history he could. This was Ralph Taylor, and he wrote only one book, Duvall Immigrant, about his growiing up in the early logging town.

There are five primary ones, and these are Ralph Tayor (1905- xxx), Don Funk (1910-196x), Marthe Barnett (1910-197x), Bob Kosters Sr (xxx), and Allen Miller (195x-xxx). 

There were also plenty of others who wrote their personal stories, or recollections, or were passionate about the history and stories, and these are in the historical society's 5 publications,  but these five wrote the lion's share, and were (and are- in the case of Allen Miller) instrumental in codifying for what we now call our "history". All later histories are only summaries of theirs.

 A few  delved deeper, and researched beyond the oral histories of others and their own memories-into the state archives and records,  but in the end, the entire history of Duvall was written and codified by 5 or so people, in a very few- less than 5 - publications. They all loved  history, and all contribute their own unique perspectives. 

Ralph Taylor's was the earliest of the historians, though Don Funk wrote his columns first.